Foundation garment



July 14, 1953 a. LEWIS FOUNDATION GARMENT Filed Jan. 11, 1952 IO 26 F4 :1. Z.

INVEVTOR.

BEN/V LE WIS ATTORNEY Patented July 14, 1953 1 This invention relates to foundation garments. It is an objectof my invention to provide-a foundation garment which affords unusually good abdominal control.

' 'It is another object of my invention to provide It is still another object of myinvention to provide a foundation garment having an inner belt that is less bulky than a conventional inner belts" Other objects of my invention will in part be be pointed out hereinobvious and in part will after. 1 My invention accordingly consists in the fea-' tures of construction, combinations of elements and arrangements of parts which will be exemplified in the foundation'garment. hereinafter described and of which the scope of application will be indicated in the appended claim.

" In the accompanying drawings injwhic h is shown one of the various possible embodiments of my invention,

Fig. 1 is a front view of a lay figure wearing agirdle constructed in accordance'with the present:

invention;

Fig. 2 is an enlarged fragmentary sectional view taken substantially along the line 2--2 of Fig. l, in the region of the inner belt;

Fig. 3 is a reduced sectional view taken substantially along the line 3--3 of Fig. 2, and showing the inside of the front of the girdle; and

Figs. 4 and 5 are enlarged fragmentary sectional views taken substantially along the lines 44 and 5--5, respectively, of Fig. 3.

Referring now in detail to the drawings, the reference letter G denotes a. foundation garment embodying the present invention.

The foundation garment may comprise, by way of example, a corset, corselette, pantie girdle or girdle. For the sake of simplicity, the invention has been shown in the accompanying drawings and will be described herein as embodied in a girdle.

The foundation garment includes a body encircling sheath which, per se. may be of conventional construction and here is shown as comprising a flexible inelastic front panel In to the Y -.z,e4 4,9 45 l- I QIF LI s --Benn Lewis, Maplewood, N. J., asslgnorutotThe Lewel Manufacturing Company,1nc., New York w; i

N. Y., acorporatlon of New Jersey I 1 H I ApplicationJanuary11,1952,sei-iallflo;265,945. j

, lClalm. (01.2 21)..

side edges of which are secured, as by stitching,

'circumferentially and vertically elastic side panels I2, l4. The rear edges'of the side panels are secured, as by stitching, to a back panel (not isho'wnf'jwhich desirably is horizontally inelastic andyertically elastic.

least the waist of the wearer. f Pursuant to the present invention,'"I' provide an'inner belt l6 whose side edges are 'secured,"as

by stitching, to the sideedges of-the front panel Said sheath encirbles' at ill. The inner belt is located on'theinnersurface of the front panel in the abdominalregionof the wearer. I y I 'Hereto'fore it has been conventional forjthe inner panel either to-comprise a webof circumferentially elastic material or a pair of cross webs,

the width of each webj ineither case, being equal I to or exceedingthe heightof theabdorninalarea to be controlled. This required an excessive amount of elastic webbing which added unnecessarily. to'theexpense'and bulk'of thegarment.

, lmaccordance with'thepresent invention the aforesaid drawback is avoided the use of the special inner belt' s'hown'in the accompanying drawings. Said belt comprises fourwebs 18,20.

22,24, each of whichmay be narrower than the .height of the abdominal area to' be'gcontrolled.

"Desirabl'y these webs arecut transversely from a wide band which is elastic in a direction pmne to the upper and lower edgesdi. e. thejselvage edges, of the band. The direction of resilience 'of the webs as assembled in the inner belt is indicated by the arrows A and will be seen to be circumferential to a substantial extentalthough, as soon will be pointed out, the direction of resilience is at a slight angle to the horizontal.

Two webs are attached to each edge-of the front panel Ill. More specifically, one pair of webs i8, 22 at their outer edges are attached, as by stitching, to one edge of the front panel II and the other pair of webs 20, 24 are attached at their outer edges, as by stitching, to the other the edges of the inner belt toward its center at the same time slanting upwardly at a slight angle to the horizontal, e. g. about 15. The upper webs meet at the center of the inner'belt and the inner edges of said webs are suitably attached to one another as by stitching. Similarly the two lower webs 22, 24 slope downwardly as they extent toward the center of the inner belt, I

of the lower pair of webs, this being shown:

clearly in Figs. 3 and 4. The four webs are held in fixed relationship at the center of 'the belt by cumferentially, inelastic panel, the ends of said suitable means, such, for instance, as a vertical tape 26 that is sewn to said websand defines a.

structed is considerably wider at'itsceriter than I at its sides thereby attaining maximum efilciency'.

in the use of the elastic webs and holding the bulk of the garment to a minimum. I

It may be mentioned that, although in the foregoing description I have related theposition of the outer edges of the four webs to the edges of thefront panel III of the girdle, such referencepoint is merelyexemplitive and if, for example, the foundation'garrnent has no single front panel but includes a front-panel which extends all the way to the sides of the garment, the outer edges of the webs composing the inner belt still preferably will be located in the position as shown in the drawings, i. e. to the sides of the abdominal region of the wearer so that the wide center of the inner belt will cover the high center of the abdominal region of the wearer The circumferential length of the inner belt is less when the garment is relaxed, i. e. off a ,wearer, than the distance along the overlying front portion of the garment, in this instance the width of the front panel 10, as best shown in liig. 2. This'arrangement permits the inner belt to stretch and ten'se when the garment is donned and thereby exercise a body controlling and shapingfunction.

It, thus wlll'be seen that I have provided a foundationgarment which achieves all the objects of my invention and is well adapted to meet the conditions of practical use;

As various possible embodiments might be 4 changes might be made in the embodiment above set forth, it is to be understood that all matter herein described, or shown in the accompanying drawings, is to be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

Having thus described my invention, I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent:

A foundation garment includingcircumferentially resilient flank portions extending from the waist to the bottom of the garment, a circum- -ferentially inelastic panel extending between and connected to the front edges of the flank portions, and an inner belt in back of the ciry-innerbelt being secured to the foundation garment at the sides of the inelastic panel, said .inner belt including four longitudinally elastic webs, one pair of webs constituting one side of .the belt and the other pair of webs constituting the other side of the ibelt, the outer edges 01' each pair of webs overlapping and being disposed at a side of the inelastic panel, one web of each pair extending upwardly from the outer edge toward the center of the belt and the other web of each pair extending downwardly whereby to provide a pair of upper webs and a pair of lower webs, the upper webs defining a shallow upwardly pointing V and the lower webs defining a shallow downwardly pointing V, the inner edges of the .upperweb of each pair of webs being secured to one another, the inner edges-of the lower web of each pair of webs being secured to one another, a stay, and means to secure said stay to the inner edges of said webs whereby to hold the apices of the -Vs apart.

'-. BENN LEWIS.

References clad in the file of this patent 4 UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,281,538 Dupuy Oct. 15, 1918 1,716,993 Von ,Halle June 11, 1929 2,553,301 Colby May 15, 1951 FOREIGN PATENTS- Number Country Date 603,502- France Jan. 9, 1926 628,690 France" July 4, 1927 945,597 France Nov. 29, 1948 

